The Covenant knows that youth are the future of the planet and the Church. That means supporting them through social activities and educational pursuits.
For that reason, the Covenant created the Pope Francis Climate Justice Scholarship. The $5,000 scholarship will be awarded each year over the course of four years to support a student’s post-secondary education.
Scholarship recipients will maintain full-time enrollment in an accredited post-secondary institution, continue their involvement in climate justice through coursework, research, or community initiatives, and participate in brief annual check-ins with Catholic Climate Covenant staff to confirm eligibility.
And the Covenant is happy to share that we’ve selected our very first Pope Francis Climate Justice Scholar!
Alexa Santana, 17, of Boston, Massachusetts, is a senior at Fontbonne Academy and plans to study human development and applied psychology. After she finishes a two-year program, she plans to continue her educational studies in the D.C. area.
Alexa got involved in climate work during her freshman year of high school when attending a youth climate march in New York.
“That was the first time I had been introduced to climate justice,” she said. “… I realized how important it was, through my work and my community work in Boston, surrounding budgets and allocations of resources, how climate affects different people, different communities, and especially communities with fewer resources. … After that, two of my friends and I got involved with Catholic Climate Covenant together and started the environmental club at my school.”
This concern for her community and the vulnerable and marginalized was apparent when Alexa competed for the Pope Francis Climate Justice Scholarship.
“Care for our common home lies in the people, and in how we work together to make a change,” Alexa wrote in her application.
“That’s what made me want to do this work,” she said. “And what made me so passionate about climate justice in the first place. … Through climate justice, I feel connected with my faith, especially through social justice projects at school. Our big capstone project is about the different Catholic Social Teachings and how they relate to social justice.”
In Boston, Santana has been involved in community work focused on resource allocation and equity, while also co-founding an environmental club at her school with fellow students through her involvement with the Catholic Climate Covenant. She has also served as a student leader with the Covenant’s Catholic Youth Climate Leadership program in Boston since her freshman year.
Alexa said it’s important for climate and Church workers — especially young people — to continue working for change, even when the task is daunting.
“I think a lot of people will say that it’s useless or that there’s no point — people view this work through such a pessimistic lens,” she said. “But I feel like, through faith, I feel like it’s my duty and my reason for this — it brings me hope and makes me want to do it even more when people say it’s useless. We need people to flip their ideologies on climate justice and not see us as something taboo, but something urgent and something that we all need to work on together.”